What's Red and White And Made in New Jersey?; Wineries Boom, but Are Short on Respect

Published: July 30, 2001

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Compared with California wine country, New Jersey's agricultural land is a relative bargain, said Gary C. Pavlis, a viticulture specialist at Rutgers University's Cooperative Extension. Prime New Jersey farmland sells for $1,800 an acre, he said, compared with $50,000 an acre in the Napa Valley. His annual winemaking workshop, Grape Expectations, drew a dozen or so people during the 1980's. These days, as many as 100 people show up.

Then there are the gentlemen-farmers, the Wall Street brokers who cashed out and found a new calling. ''I think part of it is farmers who see winemaking as more interesting and profitable than corn,'' Dr. Pavlis said. ''But it's also people who did well with the economy and realized, 'Is this all I want to do with my life?' ''

Winemaking offers the potential for greater profits than vegetable farming, although the initial investment -- $200,000 for those who already own farmland, to as much as a $1 million for newcomers -- is fairly steep. It also takes at least three years before newly planted vines will produce wine-quality fruit.

For Mr. Quarella and his wife, Nancy, winemaking was a lifelong dream that took 20 years to realize. They planted their first vines in 2000, and this year, they spent $150,000 to buy fermentation vats and convert a former garage into a tasting room and wine cellar.

Like most New Jersey wineries, theirs is a family business. Mrs. Quarella, 43, oversees tastings, designs the labels and helps with bottling operations. Two teenage sons spend much of their free time pruning and training the young vines.

''This is so much less stressful and less labor-intensive than vegetables,'' Mr. Quarella said, standing in the wine cellar where as a teenager he was taught how to make wine by his grandfather. ''Vegetables can be backbreaking, and they're so perishable. I also love the fact that with winemaking, you control the whole process, from beginning to end.''

Then there is the glamour factor, which was explained by the Quarellas' 18-year-old son, Lee, who said he might reconsider his plan to leave the family business after college. ''Vegetables are not cool,'' he said. ''Wine -- now that's cool.''

Whether the Quarellas remain vintners may depend partly on wine drinkers like Sylvia Costanzo, 68, and Gabriel Risco, 77, retirees and siblings from New Jersey who usually pour a glass of red each evening when they sit down for dinner. On a recent afternoon, they stopped in at the Four Sisters Winery in Belvidere and stepped up to the tastings bar.

As he sampled glass after glass of vidal blanc, cherry Melissa and Leon Millot, a dry, full-bodied red, Mr. Risco, who used to be a boiler superintendent, recalled crushing grapes as a child with his Italian-born father. Oohs and aahs alternated with the sound of pouring liquid, all of it capped by the sound of a ringing cash register. The two of them carried out a half-dozen bottles, for prices ranging from $8.95 to $11.95.

Mr. Risco promised to come back. ''To be honest, I usually buy jug wines and then put them in small bottles,'' he said, holding up a fruity goblet of chambourcin red. ''But this stuff, I could get used to.''

Photos: Jim Quarella, a fourth-generation vegetable farmer, realized a longtime dream by opening his own winery on his farm in Atlantic County, N.J., a month ago. The whole family shares the work, indoors and out.; Randolph Holdin was one of several people who sipped a recent offering of white wine at the tasting bar of the Four Sisters Winery in Belvidere, N.J. (Photographs by Keith Meyers/The New York Times) Chart: ''Cheers'' Some of New Jersey's Wineries (pg. B5) Map of New Jersey highlighting wineries: Wine production is a $1.5-billion-a-year business in New Jersey. (pg. B5)